Whereas with cars, there is a special legal difference which allows tow trucks to confiscate random people's cars even though the cars are neither the property of the tow truck owner nor abandoned. Cars do not enjoy any special privileges. They are the subject of a special legal burden.

To take possession of a Bird scooter, you'd first need to establish that it was abandoned property, which seems like it would be difficult to do. But maybe it's easy! Consult your local law of abandoned property.

Try a bike. Try a skateboard.

The roads are not there for cars, they existed prior, and the car owners are not what is paying for our roads.

This is actually false if add all taxes related to cars (which would include sales taxes on cars, repairs, and parts)

When most people say that they only account for gasoline taxes, often even excluding the Fuel taxes collected by the Commercial Fuel tax programs as they are accounted for differently.

Yes Gasoline Taxation on gas does not equal road maintenance, but all taxation on cars does meet and and often exceed the road costs

Not sure where to start about taxes, but for one thing we came pretty close to repealing the gas tax in CA a few months ago so that doesn't seem to be a necessary condition. And some people just happen to pay almost no property tax at all because they got here first (prop 13) but they still get access to all the same schools and fire and police services. Taxes are paid by the public at large, to benefit the public at large, you're not paying for the specific services you're using when you pay taxes. In fact it's exactly the opposite, these things are public goods.

In addition as other comments mentioned, the scooter companies are paying registration fees and taxes. At least in some cities, and I'm sure if they stick around it'll soon be in all cities.

That was a recent increase to the gas tax that was up for repeal, not the whole gas tax.

so while they are licensed, they are certainly not paying market rates for the use of these right of ways.

I don't follow...these things aren't comparable. Cities have developed a common infrastructure over decades to facilitate car ownership and usage in everyday life. While they may do the same with rental bikes and scooters in the future, they have not yet done so.

We also have a rich body of legal literature pertaining to car ownership, storage, usage and property laws. Likewise, we don't yet have those precedents for rental scooters stored on sidewalks. What we do have is a rough patchwork of sidewalk and property laws we can try to extrapolate from. How's that for efficiency?

That you get a kick out of peoples' dissatisfaction about this, for the reason you stated, suggests to me that you don't actually understand why they're upset. I don't think most people are strictly concerned about how literally space-efficient the scooters are; rather that they have a tendency to be parked on a sidewalk. People would get pretty upset if cars were suddenly parked on sidewalks without oversight too.

For example, in many cities once every week every bike parked in a public area is labelled with a little color ribbon. The colors rotate according to a fixed schedule, so that it can be verified if a bike has been parked for more than two, three, four weeks. If a bike has been left unattended for more than N weeks (where N can vary) it gets towed away. They all get stored someplace out of town, and once a month the bikes that haven't been reclaimed for M months get sold for cheap.

In other words, there are systems for how long you can leave your property unattended in public before it ceases to be your property.

The primary reason there's no system for handling abandoned bikes in the US is not that nobody uses bikes. Bikes aren't especially common, but the issue of an abandoned bike isn't going to come up -- ever -- because of the extreme frequency of bike theft. An abandoned bike will quickly be stolen, just like a non-abandoned bike. Bird's scooters don't have this problem because they're tracked. But the background reality of bicycles may contribute to jzl's (false) impression that you should be legally able to just take scooters that aren't locked down.

How much of an issue is bicycle theft in the Netherlands? How long would you expect to be able to own one before having it stolen?

This does not represent my experience at all, I've had bikes stolen once every three years on average. It won't surprise you that students learn to buy very cheap second-hand bikes with very big bulky locks really quickly here.

On the plus side, I've never been worried about junkies mugging me. They steal/sell bikes for drug money instead, and I honestly wonder if that is a uniquely Dutch thing.

Also, there's supposed to be organized rings where bikes stolen in Portland are trucked to Seattle (so they're much harder to identify as stolen) and vice-versa.

Sometimes scooters are parked on the side of the road. Sometimes scooters are parked in a ditch beside the road. Bikes rarely are.

Speaking from my experience in Shanghai, where bicycles are common, there's no such thing as a bike rack. (Well, I have seen racks for rental bikes. But none for individually-owned bicycles.)

Rather, supermarkets, university buildings, apartment complexes, and other places which are likely to receive a lot of incoming traffic have bicycle parking lots, and if you're somewhere else, you park on the sidewalk.

Scooters can be parked at bike racks. Are there enough bike racks to park the scooters at the bike racks? would the situation be similar if all of those scooters were bicycles or if bicycles were as cheap as scooters?

There are laws for cars including but not limited to federal highways laws, state/city/county/municipal traffic laws and parking laws. Those laws authorize what you refer to as “leaving them around the city”, you can only leave your car around the city if it’s in compliance and authorized by the law, the Law often specifically penalizing leaving your car in certain situations (ex. in front of fire hydrants; in handicap spaces without permits; in traffic lanes). Their are no laws blankety authorizing scooter companies to adbadon and/or sell their products/goods/services on public sidewalks or roadway. Generally speaking most states/counties/cities/municipalities will have laws specifically prohibiting the same subject to various penalties without prior authorization, permits, etc... consider the number of stories in recent years about kids lemonade stands being shutdown and fined for operating without licenses.

Depending how old you are you might remember pay phones, phone booths, or coin operated newspaper stands...definitely you are probably familiar with atms and vending machines. What if a “tech startup” just started cluttering streets and sidewalks with those. That too would be illegal and not at all similar legally to cars being “left around the city”. Maybe another example is farmers markets, think if a “tech company” just started setting up farmers markets wherever they wanted without prior authorization.

As anyone who has had their car towed when it was legally parked (buddy of mine once got towed from his own assigned spot) this is pretty much spot on. The difference is so far Bird isn't ransoming their property back.

As I point out in another comment, this is not because being located in a random spot is sufficient to establish that an item is abandoned property. (If it were, the tow truck company would be legally entitled to keep your car!)

Rather, there is legislation which specifically allows towing of cars in certain areas, subject to certain rules. There is no such legislation for scooters.

Your sarcastic analogy would make sense if people just parked cars anywhere they wanted without repercussions.

I would have no problem if the city took away parking spots for cars and said park them there.

I wish I could give you more than 1 downvote.

Is that true in the US?

In Ireland, by default you're allowed park on the side of the road. There are exceptions, ie you can't cause an obstruction to traffic, block an entrance, park where road markings prohibit it, or within certain distances of a junction. However, if none of the above apply, you don't need to find a marked parking space - you can just park.

Most cities in the US make big money off parking violations.